You sit down to plan, and something feels off. The lesson you’ve taught before doesn’t quite fit the group in front of you. The starting point feels less predictable. The spread of readiness feels harder to plan for. And even when you plan carefully, it can feel like you’re either missing students at the beginning or losing them along the way.
If you’ve felt that recently, you’re not imagining it and you’re not alone.
It’s easy to assume the range in classrooms widened during the pandemic and that we haven’t quite found our way back. But our research suggests something slightly different: Classrooms have long been academically diverse. What has shifted is that more students are now off track and further from grade-level expectations than before. That can naturally increase the complexity of planning and instruction.
At the same time, there’s something encouraging: Classrooms showing strong growth are not relying on entirely new strategies. Instead, they’re making small but intentional shifts in how time is used, how tasks are designed, and how student thinking is surfaced.
In this article, we’ll walk you through what the research is showing as well as practical tips that can help you feel more confident you’re ready to meet the needs of all your students.
Why your starting point feels different
Our findings, published in our research brief “Academically diverse classrooms, deeper needs: What teachers face after the pandemic,” show that following COVID-19 school closures, approximately 72% of students in a typical fifth-grade math classroom started the year off track for proficiency, up from 65% in the fall of 2019.
A teacher’s reality
Assuming a classroom of 20 students, our research data means teachers must meet the needs of their six on-track students while crafting plans to catch up the remaining 14 who are likely not fully prepared to learn on-grade material.
Try this tomorrow
What would it look like to anchor your planning in one non-negotiable learning goal and widen the entry points? Instead of trying to adjust everything, we suggest focusing on two guiding questions:
- What must students learn?
- How can more students access that starting point?
This might look like:
- A model or worked example
- Sentence frames or guiding questions
- A scaffolded first step to get started
Before your next lesson, plan:
- One clear learning goal
- Two different ways students can enter the learning
You’re not creating multiple lessons. You’re making one lesson more accessible from the start.
Why the range in your classroom isn’t going away
The pandemic didn’t create the problem of academically diverse classrooms. As teachers have long known, students enter the classroom with a wide range of preparation and skills every year. However, our research has found that the combination of the lingering educational disruptions of the pandemic, increased social media and technology use in and outside the classroom, higher rates of chronic absenteeism, and broader societal forces outside of teachers’ control mean this diversity in student needs isn’t going away any time soon.
A teacher’s reality
Even with adjustments, the range is still there. Some students move quickly, while others need more opportunities to build understanding. Teaching to the “middle” can feel like it misses both ends of the group.
The range itself isn’t new. What’s shifted is that more students within that range may need deeper support. That can make the work of planning feel more complex.
Try this tomorrow
What does it look like when we design tasks with flexibility built in, instead of creating separate pathways? We encourage you to look for ways to:
- Allow multiple strategies
- Encourage explanation and reasoning
- Add opportunities for extension without creating entirely new work
Take one task you already use and ask yourself:
- Can students approach this in different ways?
- Can I add one question that invites deeper thinking?
Small shifts can expand access while keeping your planning manageable.
Why “catching students up” in one year may not be realistic
In an ideal world, an exceptional teacher would be able to get all her students to proficiency in the course of a single school year. We know that’s not a realistic scenario in most cases, however.
Many students who are off track for proficiency need more than one year of accelerated growth to reach proficiency. In our study, we found that the average off-track fifth grader would have to grow 2.7 times their expected growth rate to reach proficiency in one year.
This shift has important instructional implications. Accelerated growth is difficult to achieve for any individual student. When a larger share of students in a classroom requires more intensive acceleration at the same time, meeting those needs through everyday instruction becomes significantly harder for teachers.
A teacher’s reality
There can be pressure to get students back to where they’re expected to be—and to do it quickly. That pressure can make every lesson feel like it has to accomplish more than is realistic in the time available.
Try this tomorrow
How can you shift from focusing only on “catching up” to tracking and building momentum over time? Consider focusing on:
- Evidence of growth, not just gaps
- Patterns in student thinking
- Next instructional steps, not final destinations
At the end of your lesson, capture your answers to the following questions:
- Who showed progress?
- What did progress look like?
- What’s one next step to consider?
Over time, these small snapshots can provide a clearer and more useful picture than a single data point.
Planning in a way that’s actually sustainable
Differentiation is central to teaching. As noted in “Differentiating instruction: Understanding the key elements for successful teacher preparation and development,” however, how best to prepare teachers for this part of the work remains unclear.
A teacher’s reality
Differentiation can quickly turn into more: more groups, more materials, more decisions. That’s not always sustainable in day-to-day practice. Even small increases in the number of students needing deeper support can increase instructional demands. That makes it even more important to have planning structures that work over time.
Try this tomorrow
What opportunities do you have to rely on repeatable structures, not one-time solutions? Focus on routines that can carry across lessons:
- Flexible grouping that can change as students grow
- Quick checks for understanding
- Student discussion to surface thinking
These are not add-ons; they’re ways to make instruction more responsive without adding more planning.
We encourage you to choose one routine to try this week:
- A quick check, then regroup, then reteach or extend
- A turn-and-talk, listening for patterns, then adjusting your next step
- A team conversation about one piece of student work and what the next move might be
The bigger picture
If classrooms have not fundamentally changed since the pandemic but the depth of need has, planning may need to shift in a few key ways:
- Start with clarity, not coverage. What’s the most important learning, and how will students access it?
- Plan for the range, not the “middle.” The goal isn’t to eliminate differences; it’s to design instruction that works within them.
- Focus on growth, not just catching up. Progress over time matters, and it helps guide the next instructional move.
It can be easy to feel like you’re always behind. But what if the goal is not to cover everything, but to move students forward from wherever they are? At the end of your next lesson, pause and ask yourself, Who moved forward today, and how do I know? Let that answer guide what comes next.
